Thursday, April 19, 2012

Tactics in D&D 4E

More than in computer role-playing games, combat in D&D still has some elements of monsters and events being there for dramatic effect. But while the story-telling and dramatic effects very much depend on the DM and the players, the underlying combat rules provide a solid base of game mechanics, which would work just as well in a computer game. Understanding how this system works and what consequences the game mechanics have for strategy and tactics enables players to be more successful, and DMs to run better battles.

Now 4th edition D&D combat rules show a clear influence of MMORPG combat systems, and that is something that previous editions didn't have. While D&D combat always had heavily armored fighters in the front rank and glass cannon mages in the back, in 4th edition the tanks gain some forms of "taunt"-like abilities for aggro control. And like in MMORPGs, combat healing is now more prominent. All this has as consequence that classic MMORPG "holy trinity" tactics play a bigger role in D&D 4E combat than in previous editions.

Combat in D&D is nearly always a group activity. And in 4th edition in most cases the monsters also come as a group. Especially the introduction of minions, monsters with just 1 hitpoint, enables DMs to create encounters which look a lot more dramatic from the start due to the presence of lots of monsters. This group vs. group concept of combat has tactical consequences, because the two groups aren't equal: In a standard combat all or nearly all of the players should be alive at the end of combat, and all of the monsters dead. But as the monsters don't die all at once, this implies that combat is getting easier for the group as they eliminate their enemies one by one.

The best tactics for a player group usually is to eliminate the minions first, with AoE spells and abilities if available. Then the players should concentrate their fire on one opponent after the other, because every monster gone is making the next round of combat easier to survive. But as D&D 4E combat is highly tactical, using a battle grid, movement limitations, zones of control, and all that, players usually can't all hit the same mob. Often it is better to to engage in some crowd control: A fighter "tanking" one mob while the group kills another monster. Or the mage using spells like sleep to keep some mobs busy.

One important tactical decision by the players is which powers to use. At-will powers have the least effect, but are not used up. Encounter powers can only be used once per combat, and daily powers only once per day. As players don't know how the combat will evolve, and whether they will have more combats that day, they are sometimes reluctant to use their encounter and daily powers. If the players don't know the monsters, and are unsure which of them pose what sort of a threat, it is understandable that they might want to start with at-will powers to not waste their good powers on weak monsters and later regret not having it for a stronger opponent. But even if you start the first round of combat with an at-will power to see how it goes, it is generally best to use encounter and daily powers early in combat. The faster the players take out the first mobs, the easier the combat gets for them.

In principle the same tactics are true for the DM playing the monsters. Only that "winning" the combat isn't actually the DMs goal. A wipe, usually called "TPK" for total party kill in D&D parlance, represents a major setback in the story for both the players and the DM. It shouldn't be impossible, especially not if the players did something stupid to get into that mess. But as the DM controls the number and strength of all monsters, killing the players can't be a challenge for him, because he would always be able to do so by pulling enough of them out of his hat. Instead the challenge for the DM in combat is to provide the players with a tactical challenge and dramatic effects that make the combat memorable for the players, but not necessarily lethal. Having a player dead once in a while isn't bad, and adds to the drama, but a TPK isn't really a desirable outcome.

Fortunately understanding of tactics works both ways. Without having to fudge dice or use Deux Ex Machina events, a DM can moderate combat by having his mobs act more or less tactically intelligent. There is always an excuse for artificial stupidity: Not every goblin, wolf, or bandit is likely to be a tactical genius, so using tactics that are unlikely to kill the group is perfectly justifiable. And fortunately the desire to not kill the group and the desire to make combat dramatic for everybody are not incompatible with each other: Having the mobs spread out their attacks and wounding everybody a little instead of concentrating their fire can feel more dramatic for the players, while actually being less dangerous for them.

Combat needs to make sense to the players, and it is best if there is a certain visible logic behind the decisions the DM takes when running his monsters. For example D&D 4E "taunts" aren't absolutely forcing monsters to attack the tank. But it usually is a good idea to treat them as such, so as to make taunting work as intended. In many battles it probably would be possible for the mobs to ignore the the tank and all concentrate on the healer to take him out first, but that would make combat rather frustrating for the healer and then the other players. If the players make a reasonable effort to keep their squishier members protected, the DM shouldn't go out of his way to destroy that plan. But making combat logical also means that if the group plays carelessly and the mage ends up being a front line combatant, the DM shouldn't hesitate to have several mobs attack him to make the consequences very visible to him.

The DM not being out to "win" and kill the party also means that he should be lenient on rule calls if the players try out something non-standard. The goal is for everybody to have fun, and to create a good story, so the rogue swinging over the battlefield on a chandelier isn't something the DM should discourage. In fact it is probably a good idea to run combat on maps containing various pieces of furniture, obstacles, and other stuff that can influence the fight, so as to encourage the players to try other stuff than just using their standard powers. Of course that doesn't mean you should allow the mage to single-handedly win the whole battle with a simple cantrip. Thus him casting Ghost Sound to create a dragon's roar behind the enemy could be ruled to give a combat advantage for one round while the enemy is distracted, but not to make all monsters run away.

Personally I do like the D&D 4th edition combat system. It is more likely than previous editions to let all players participate in having entertaining and dramatic battles, because everybody has "spells" now. And with positioning being so important now, it becomes possible for the same group to fight similar monsters twice and get battles with a very different feel, depending on the geography and features of the location. And in some way combat is auto-regulating, becoming easier through monsters being killed, while players are becoming more worried over the damage accumulating on them. If players consider every fight tough and dramatic, that is a lot better than the MMORPG habit of thinking "let's go and kill a hundred mobs to grind some xp". In D&D the story is the purpose, the entertainment, and not "winning".

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

The Favorites of Selune campaign - Level 1 - Session 4

The players ended the last session by having a night's rest in Winterhaven, where they are investigating the mysterious death and subsequent zombification of the mage Arris. Getting up the next morning they are greeted by a scene of busy village life. It is the day before the Blessing of the Seeds procession, and most villagers are busy preparing for the festival: The elder villagers are sweeping the streets, although they seem to be busier talking than sweeping. Some boys are playing noisily, doing all sorts of pranks, and Father Matthias has caught one naughty boy and is spanking him. The girls of the village are busy preparing garlands, and the innkeeper is stretching cords from house to house to hang them up.

The players decide not to interact with the villagers at this point, except for one dwarf getting a second breakfast from the innkeeper. Then, following clues that villagers have disappeared in the woods, they decide to put up a trap: One of them disguises as a villager, hacking wood in a clearing, with the rest of the group hidden out of sight. [DM's note: There is a good DM rule to try and say "yes" to everything the players try, but that doesn't mean that you need every plan of them succeed.] After having spent the whole day that way without success, the players return to the village.

Suddenly one of them remembers that they were previously worried about the chalice in the church getting stolen, so three of the players go there. The chalice is still safe and sound, although Father Matthias tells them that the boy he was spanking this morning had tried to steal it, and got paralyzed by a glyph. The players don't follow that up, but spend the night in the church guarding the chalice, until they are awoken the next morning by Father Matthias coming to prepare for the Blessing of the Seeds. The mage asks him whether he could examine the chalice, and with an arcane check finds that the pentagonal chalice has a symbol on each side representing different planes: Prime Material Plane, the Shadowfell, Feywild, Celestia in the Astral Sea, and the Abyss in the Elemental Chaos. He suspects that the chalice is good for planar travel, but can't activate it without a command word.

Now one of the big classic issues of DMing an adventure arises: The players decide to do nothing, while waiting for the Blessing of the Seeds procession. D&D is designed to be an interactive story-telling experience, between the DM who has all the information about the world and what is going on, and the players who have limited information and are trying to find out what is going on. The DM gives the the players hints and descriptions what they see, and the players are supposed to follow those up. Only sometimes they don't. Either the way to go isn't obvious, or, as I suspect in this case, it is *too* obvious. The dead mage having been found with a ring of depetrification on his finger next to a circle of standing stones with one outer and the central stone missing should have encouraged the players to depetrify another stone, but they suspected that to be a trap releasing even more problems upon the village. I've seen adventures get stuck like that, so the trick to not let that happen is to have a plan B and know how the NPCs and villains will drive the story forward if the players don't.

The procession of the Blessing of the Seeds festival begins at noon, with Father Matthias coming from the church holding the chalice and moving towards the village gate and the farms outside, where he will fill the chalice with holy water and bless the seeds to guarantee a good harvest. The villagers form up in a procession behind him, children first, then the adults. The players decide to stand guard and distribute themselves strategically around the procession. With the detect undead ability of the priest's mace they are thus well prepared when three juju zombies attack.

What they aren't prepared for, having not followed up a lot of available information, is when in the middle of the fight one of the children next to Father Matthias polymorphs back into his natural form: An ancient vrock demon named Jaazzpaa. Jaazzpaa grabs the chalice from the priest, and apparently tries to use it for planar travel, looking somewhat surprised when that doesn't appear to be working. In spite of the player's attempts to stop him (somewhat divided due to the zombie attack), Jaazzpaa then flies away with the chalice. The players kill the zombies and discover that one of them is not a villager; instead it is a man in a loin-cloth with blue painted symbols on his torso, a bone through his nose, a feather hat on his head, and armed just with a dagger made out of flintstone.

Now the players find out what happened. They depetrify another stone of the stone circle, liberating another stone-age shaman in similar attire. With a comprehend languages ritual they learn from the shaman that 5,000 years ago 10 shamans of the surrounding villages sacrificed themselves in a ritual which transformed them and "The Beast" permanently into stone. The Beast (Jaazzpaa) had used his chalice to teleport into the villages from his home in the Abyss, eat a villager or two, and go back home. The shamans' sacrifice was the only way to stop him. When the mage Arris, misled by stories saying that the stones were farmers petrified by a basilisk, depetrified one of the shamans, he inadvertedly broke the ritual spell and freed the demon. The demon killed both the depetrified shaman and Arris with a spore attack that made them come back as zombies two days later, under the control of the demon. Jaazzpaa then tried to get this chalice back, polymorphing into a village boy. As he couldn't enter the church's holy ground, he charmed another boy to steal the chalice for him, but didn't succeed. So he had to wait for the chalice to leave the churce during the Blessing of the Seeds, using the shaman zombie and two villagers he had caught in the woods and zombified as distraction.

While Lord Padraig would like the players to go after the demon, and the players are interested too, they don't know where to start looking for Jaazzpaa now. Valthrun, counsellor to Lord Padraig thinks he can find out something about the demon's whereabouts, using his library of books and network of informants. But that will take some time, and he advises the players to spend that time gaining a bit more experience before tackling a powerful demon. The players thus return to Fallcrest, fulfil their initial quest of bringing the ring of depetrification back to the temple of Selune, and reaching level 2 with the quest xp.

This ends the group's level 1 adventure. Much of it was taken from an adventure published in Dungeon Magazine #25: The Standing Stones of Sundown. The plan is to do another adventure now before coming back at a slightly higher level to chase Jaazzpaa the Ancient Vrock.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Not a spectator sport

Watching other Dungeon Masters of Dungeons & Dragons in action, let's say via YouTube, to learn something from them turns out to be not so easy. First of all there are very few videos of real play sessions on offer. And then those who are of a reasonable production quality turn out to be not quite the real thing: In order to get the film to a reasonable length, combat is often shortened by using just one real monster and filling the rest up with minions that die quickly. And while you can watch some bantering between players, there is never the endless discussion on what to do next which characterizes many real games.

I will be playing D&D tonight, and we are still on the first "adventure". Maybe the group will finish it tonight, maybe they'll need another session. Which means that going through one adventure with one story and a few fights will have taken up to 20 hours of play time. Even if I had the best camera equipment in the world and had filmed that adventure, nobody would want to watch 20 hours of people sitting around a table, talking a lot, and sometimes moving some figurines around and rolling dice. But *I* was immensely entertained during these hours, and as far as I can tell, so were my players. It is just that this entertainment can't be caught on film.

In a way that is a bit like reading a book. Those of us who read the Lord of the Rings years before the movies came out probably all had some vivid images of the fellowship and their adventures in their heads, even if they read editions of the book without graphics. Our imagination is often the best graphics card. Watching a video of a guy reading a book can't possibly display the fun and entertainment happening in his head.

It is also important to point out that most people who play in a regular D&D group don't meet up *only* to play D&D. Hanging out with friends is an important part of the activity, and a lot of the exchange between the players either has nothing at all to do with the game, or is in the form of in-jokes nobody outside their circle would understand.

If I look at computer RPGs and MMORPGs, there are a lot more videos available and it is easier to get an idea what the game is about by watching. Nevertheless there is still a gap between for example the graphics and activities presented in a World of Warcraft trailer and those happening if you play WoW. Probably the trailers are meant to represent what people imagine while they play, not what they actually do while playing. I've seen some hilarious films of people playing a WoW raid where the camera showed only the player, not the screen; between the facial expressions, hammering on the keyboard, and swearing into a headset that gave an interesting image of World of Warcraft, but not one which corresponds to the mental experience of the players themselves.

Dungeons & Dragons not being a spectator sport makes it more difficult for Wizards of the Coast to promote the game. Basically you need to play D&D to understand it. I think they had a good idea of running the "D&D Encounters" every Wednesday in gaming stores, but coverage for that appears to be good only in the USA. There is no store running D&D Encounters in a 200 km radius of where I live shown on WotC's website for finding those. WotC claims that 5 million people play D&D, but I have no idea how they could possibly come up with a reasonably exact number for that. D&D can be "Free2Play" in a way, as X players playing the game together don't need X copies of the rulebooks. But then somebody might have the rulebooks but not be playing. So if the only data you have is product sales, it would be difficult to estimate number of active players from that.

I am happy that I have the opportunity to still play D&D. Computer games are nice, and often a lot more convenient than getting a regular pen & paper group together. But computer games by necessity have very strong limitations to what you can do in the game, limitations that don't exist in a pen & paper game. If you want to play a game which is only limited by the imagination of you and your friends, there is nothing better than pen & paper roleplaying games. Even if it's not much to watch.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Membuat Stempel Di coreldraw

stempel warna
Dalam artikel kali ini, kita akan bahas mengenai pembuatan stempel dengan aplikasi desain Coreldraw yang sudah tidak asing lagi bagi para desainer grafis, cara sederhana dan cukup mudah dalam pengerjaannya.
Tahapan Membuat Stempel Dalam coreldraw :
  1. Jalankan aplikasi coreldraw yang sudah ter install di kompi / laptop anda lalu buka halaman baru pada coreldraw dengan mengklik New blank document, seperti gambar di bawah ini :
    Membuat Stempel Di coreldraw
  2. Buatlah sebuah lingkaran pada media dengan mengklik menu Ellipse Tool yang terletak disebelah kiri halaman atau tekan F7 pada keyboard anda,
    Membuat Stempel Di coreldraw
    selanjutnya Klik Tahan+geser(Drag) sambil menekan Ctrl pada keyboard anda, agar lingkaran yang dibuat jadi lebih sempurna.
    membuat lingkaran
  3. Kemudian klik mouse pada Pick tool, object lingkaran masih keadaan terpilih (aktif) tekan 2 kali tombol + (plus) di numpad (keyboard) untuk menggandakan, dengan tekan Ctrl, drag ke dalam sedikit, kemudian lingkaran hasil penggandaan yang kedua drag juga kedalam dengan ukuran yang lebih kecil (jangan lupa dengan tekan Ctrl)
    Membuat Stempel Di coreldraw
    Selanjutnya buat kotak dengan Rectangle tool (difungsikan sebagai object pemotong) dan tempatkan pada posisi seperti gambar dibawah ini (untuk memposisikan center cara yang paling cepat, Klik object kotak dan Shift klik object lingkaran dan tekan E dan C di Keyboard, perlu di ingat..! jangan terbalik, yang harus di klik object kotak dulu lo..!, dimanapun tempatnya object kotak akan mengarah pada object lingkaran dengan posisi center.... )

    Stempel coreldraw

     kemudian Pilih object lingkaran dan object kotak dan klik Back minus front pada Property bar, maka object lingkaran akan terpotong dan object kotak akan hilang dengan sendirinya. .
    Stempel coreldraw
  4. Selanjutnya buat object lingkaran lagi dengan men-copy object lingkaran yang sudah ada, keadaan object lingkaran masih dalam keadaan terpilih klik Text tool pada Toolbox, kemudian pada Menu bar pilih Text --> Fit Text To Path
    Membuat Stempel Di coreldraw
  5. buatlah teks apa saja yang Anda inginkan
    Membuat Stempel Di coreldraw
  6. Untuk membuat text yang melengkung dibawah, Text tool masih keadaan terpilih arahkan cursor ke object lingkaran bagian bawah kemudian ketikkan apa yang Anda inginkan
    Membuat Stempel Di coreldraw
  7. Kemudian klik Mirror text horizontally dan Mirror text vertically
    Contoh stempel
    Atur parameter pada Distance from path,
    parameter pada Distance from path
    dan Pada Offset
    Offset

  8. Kemudian klik Shape tool untuk mengatur spasi pada text
    Shape tool
  9. selanjutnya masukan teks ke dalam lingkaran dengan posisi Center 100 %ASLI stempel
  10. untuk pembatas buat object bintang dengan menggunakan Polygon tool, tekan + pada Numpad  untuk men-copy object bintang, dengan tekan Ctrl, drag object bintang ke samping.
    object bintang
  11. Proses awal selesai, dan untuk pengaturan warna, buat object kotak yang (yang berfungsi sebagai lensa) tempatkan persis diatas desain stempel yang sudah jadi, kemudian pada Menu bar klik Effect --> Lens, dan atur seperti langkah gambar dibawah ini
    lili solifah
  12. selesai. dan hasil akhirnya seperti gambar di bawah ini :
    stempel lili solifah
  13. Untuk Vector Stempelnya silahkan download di bawah ini :
Vector Stempel  CDR
Catatan : Jika ada link Download yang rusak mohon beri tahu kami.
Special Thanks To "Belajar coreldraw"

Vector Sepatu Olahraga | Vector sepatu sport

Vector Sepatu Olahraga / Vector sepatu sport

Sepatu Olahraga, sepatu sport

Vector Sepatu Olahraga / Vector sepatu sport CDR
Password :  nirwana-game.blogspot.com


Catatan : Jika ada link Download yang rusak mohon beri tahu kami.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Happy anniversay, World of Tanks!

The EU version of World of Tanks is celebrating its first anniversary. I'm still playing, but I pretty much gave up on the rat race of trying to get ever bigger tanks. Most of the time I'm playing scouts. And apparently I'm not all that bad at it, my T-50-2 just got the "Mastery Badge: I class - earn more experience in a single battle than the highest experience gain of 95% of the players in the same tank within the last seven days."

But as much as I love light tank scouts, I couldn't help but notice that they got somewhat too good over the last year. There are a lot more light tanks in the tank trees now, and also some other tanks like the new American tank destroyers which move at the speed of a light tank. In a game that has a lot of rock - paper - scissors elements, that has consequences: Artillery has become nearly unplayable, and few people use SPGs any more. Which in turn makes heavy tanks more powerful than they are supposed to be, as their major threat was basically removed from the game. I think that makes the game somewhat less interesting now than it was before.

World of Warplanes is in global alpha now, and a "2012" release date was confirmed. But the game I'm really waiting for is World of Battleships. Until then I can still drive around with my light tanks for a while.

Vector Ban Mobil

Vector Ban Mobil
 Ban Mobil

Vector Ban Mobil CDR
Password :  nirwana-game.blogspot.com


Catatan : Jika ada link Download yang rusak mohon beri tahu kami.

Bioware sees risk that people quit SWTOR at the level cap

Well, they didn't say that * explicitly*. But how do you explain this promotion, where players with a level capped character receive a free month of subscription, while those who played for exactly the same time and paid exactly the same money are declared being less valued customers because they didn't reach the level cap? Handing out free subscriptions always smack a bit of desperation, but this targeting of players with level capped characters must mean that Bioware sees a high risk of these players abandoning ship otherwise. And while I only have anecdotal evidence, I think that this must be based on lots of people actually leaving after having "played through" SWTOR.

This wouldn't be unexpected at all. The unique selling point of SWTOR is how it tells the story of your character while leveling up. That part of the game simply ceases to exist at the level cap, which makes the "endgame" of SWTOR even less attractive compared to the leveling game than in other MMORPGs. The whole Legacy system is basically Bioware saying "Don't go yet! Play an alt instead!". And even that solution has its limits. You can play SWTOR through only twice before starting to repeat quests, once on each side. With the planet sequence for each side being mostly linear, and most planet quests not being class-related, if you play either Empire or Republic twice, you are bound to do a lot of quests you already know.

If you sell a game on the strength of it's stories, you mustn't be surprised if people quit once the stories run out. But a promotion in which people who unsubscribe get 7 days subscription free, people who didn't unsubscribe but are at risk of doing so because they reached the level cap get 30 days subscription free, and everybody else gets absolutely nothing is rather stupid. Bioware is basically punishing their *really* loyal subscribers, those who played lots of alts instead of rushing through the game. Bad move, Bioware!

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Deliberately missing the bus

There are four things I *could* do related to online role-playing games of 2012:
  1. Play the Mists of Pandaria beta
  2. Download the client for the TERA open beta starting in a week
  3. Pre-purchase Diablo III
  4. Pre-purchase Guild Wars 2
Unfortunately none of these look really attractive to me. I might try the TERA beta for the simple reason that it is free and thus I can have a look at the game for myself without having to wait until it goes Free2Play, which will presumably happen next year. ;)

I am not at all interested in the MoP beta, although I have an invite. My experience with World of Warcraft expansions is that they provide not enough content to cover the two years between their releases. Thus getting a sneak peak before release is shooting myself in the foot, or even both feet, as I not only will have less fun in the release version but also will have to redo stuff I already did in the beta.

While I am in the Diablo III beta, and played it through several times in earlier incarnations, I can't even bring myself to play the latest version again. Action RPGs tend to bore me quicker than games with more tactical combat. So why would I want to pay for this game before it is even released?

Same thing for Guild Wars 2, why pay full price for a game before it is even released? I'd rather wait until the game is available on Steam, hopefully for a more reasonable price than the one on offer for the pre-order, which here in Europe is €54.99 or the equivalent of $72. And that is for the cheapest option with no extra goodies!

I have been in enough betas and launches to know that not every launch goes smoothly, and that games tend to become cheaper more and more quickly after release. The hype-then-disappointment cycle for games is bad enough without the current trend of developers to try and cash in on the hype before the first reviews are out. Diablo III and Guild Wars 2 might well be both better and cheaper three months after release. So I consider waiting and playing open betas for free instead of pre-purchasing.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Beyond skill

Games generally involve skill. A person playing a game for the first time will need some time to learn the skills involved, provided the game needs different skills than the games the person played before. In some cases it is possible that the acquisition of skill lasts forever, albeit probably with diminishing returns. For example there is no upper limit to the amount of skill you can have in chess. In other games there are upper limits to skill. It is possible to master Tic-Tac-Toe to the point where you can't possible get any more skillful in playing it, because the complexity of the game is limited. In video games, especially online video games, there might also be technical limits to skills: You can't possibly react any faster than your ping, and you can't press buttons faster than the built-in cooldown between button presses.

Raph Koster in his book A Theory of Fun for Game Design claims that learning a game and acquiring those skills constitutes the fun of games. Once you completely master the game, it becomes boring.

I would say that the amount of skill you can develop in playing a character in a MMORPG is limited. And because so many games use so very similar game mechanics, many of these skills are transferable. Some details might be different, but if you mastered playing a tank, healer, or dps in game A, you will quickly master playing the same role in game B.

I do believe that most people reached the point where they more or less completely mastered the core skills of their MMORPG character already years ago. Vanilla WoW might still have been about learning how to play your class, but Wrath and Cataclysm certainly weren't. The challenge of raid encounters evolved from "can you get the maximum performance out of your character?" to "can you still get the maximum performance out of your character while being forced to constantly react to scripted events?". You do not learn how to tank, heal, or dps better by jumping out of the fire, you only learn how to jump out of the fire faster. On the one side that game design opens up an eternal "learning process", because the player needs to memorize the scripted events of every encounter, and every encounter can have a new script. On the other side that learning process is less satisfying, as you don't really learn how to play your character better, you only learn to memorize one encounter after another. And you don't even "learn by playing", because in a cooperative multiplayer game anybody less advanced in the learning curve is a burden to everybody else, thus people are expected to already have learned the script through out of game tools like YouTube and Bosskiller sites before even their first attempt.

I observe a growing dissatisfaction of veteran players with the MMORPG genre. And I believe that this is because we are way past the point where we had fun because we learned new skills. And as long as new games don't demand new skills from us, that is not going to change. We will just apply our old skills to the new games, and become bored quicker and quicker with every new game. The whole "cloning successful games" school of game design is a trap, because by cloning successful games you also clone the skills needed to beat those games, and prevent people from having fun by learning new skills.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Pre-pre-order

Tipa of West Karana wonders whether Kickstarter will usher in the age of boutique gaming. Well, I am kind of skeptical. I checked Kickstarter's FAQ and found that the people pledging money will be charged the moment the "funding goal" is reached. After that "It is the responsibility of the project creator to fulfill the promises of their project. Kickstarter reviews projects to ensure they do not violate the Project Guidelines, however Kickstarter does not investigate a creator's ability to complete their project." In other words, if you fund a video game via Kickstarter and the game is never released or totally sucks when released, you're out of luck and have no way to get your money back.

Making video games is an extremely risky business. Changing funding from investors to crowd funding does not change that. Thousands of games every year get cancelled before they are ever released, or are rushed to release in a state that only remotely resembles the promises made before. Pre-ordering a game before the first reviews are in is a risk, which is why companies offer you lots of goodies if you pre-order. Using Kickstarter is a far higher risk, as you aren't even certain to ever get that game at all.

Of course like in any gamble there is also a chance that you win, in this case that by pre-pre-ordering the game you assure that you get the game that you wanted, especially if what you wanted isn't really mainstream. Some types and genres of games have fallen out of fashion, and Kickstarter might make it possible for some not fashionable games to be made. I just wonder if everybody is well aware of the risk involved. Hype for a game and a famous developer don't guarantee that in the end the game will be actually any good. Would you have wanted to Kickstart Daikatana or Duke Nukem Forever?

Monday, April 9, 2012

Handling in-game consequences

So I managed to finish Red Dead Redemption over the Easter weekend. One trick I used was a way to get basically infinite money without using a cheat code: Save game, play high-stakes poker, reload if you lose, save game if you win, rinse, lather, repeat. That trick works in pretty much every single-player game which has both a save game feature and a built-in game of chance. And it made me think about how games handle consequences.

Especially in PC games there has been a trend towards "save anywhere, anytime" features, with quick save and quick load function keys. Thus the "penalty" for not succeeding in some activity is having to reload and do it over. And over. And over. The developers know that players can try again, so they don't mind putting in scripted nasty instakill surprises in their games, which players can only possibly avoid after having been killed by them once. Not the very best game design, in my opinion.

In console games you often can only save your game at specific points. Thus you need to play through each sequence without saving, and need to redo the whole sequence from the last checkpoint if you fail. As that sequence might have several of those nasty surprises, you need to memorize them while playing. Every subsequent attempt gets you further, and gets easier, because you will know what will happen.

Multiplayer online games have respawns instead of reloads. It used to be that this respawn involved some sort of penalty, thus trying the same activity over and over by dying your way through it was not a good option. That has changed: Modern MMORPGs let you respawn with just a token penalty of repair cost. As thus there isn't much of a difference between respawning at the graveyard and reloading at the checkpoint, a raid encounter plays remarkably like a level on a console game: You succeed once everybody has memorized what will happen at each step of the encounter. The only advantage of multiplayer games is that you can't reload after every random roll that doesn't come out in your favor.

Personally I am not a big fan of failing your way through the content game design. I feel it is somewhat lazy, as the designers don't really need to worry whether their challenges are reasonable. But I can also see the advantage in guaranteeing that everybody will be able to finish the game and the story. In Red Dead Redemption there is no possible way you can get stuck: Fail a mission repeatedly and you get an option to skip it, with the only consequence being not getting the achievements related to it. I just wonder whether that couldn't be achieved by a different design, one that doesn't rely on the player dying repeatedly without consequences.

Red Dead Redemption

Nothing but a long, rainy Easter weekend to catch up with the games in my library I never got around to playing. I started Red Dead Redemption on Saturday and have it around three-quarters complete by now. At first I thought I wouldn't get far with this game, as I had a horrible time hitting anything. I don't play many shooters, and if I play them, I do so on the PC. Red Dead Redemption is console only, and aiming fast with a little thumbstick isn't easy when you aren't used to it. But then I fortunately found the auto-aiming "casual" setting which solved that problem.

Red Dead Redemption reminds me a lot of other Rockstar Games. It's a "Grand Theft Horse" in all but name. But the story is good, and the atmosphere of a Western is well achieved. And it's long enough to include every single Western cliché you ever heard of, from gun-slinger duels to train robberies to participating in the Mexican revolution.

By reducing the difficulty level of shooting, I basically played the game in interactive story mode. There were still plenty of times where I had to retry stuff to succeed, because there are other challenges in the game than just shooting: Racing horses or coaches, or breaking horses, which might actually be the most difficult part of the game. In principle there are also moral choices to make, but I found that these choices inevitably lean towards the good side. Doing quests gives you honor, and to reach negative honor you need to do out-of-story stuff like shooting random strangers and stealing horses. You *can* be an outlaw, but it isn't driving the story forward.

Well, I had bought the game when it was already selling for half-price, and Red Dead Redemption was certainly worth that. There isn't much competition of Wild West games, and Red Dead Redemption lets you "live" in the Wild West for a weekend or so. Recommended!

Friday, April 6, 2012

What 4th edition are you playing?

Dungeons & Dragons had two versions of the 3rd edition, the second being called 3.5. It also has two versions of the 4th edition, the "normal" 4th edition and the "Essentials". In many aspects the Essentials are just a repackaged version of the normal 4th edition, with smaller paperback books instead of larger hardcover books, and with all the rules updates and errata included. But there is one major difference which for me makes Essentials feel like a very different game: Character generation and leveling.

Every time you gain a power in normal 4th edition, you have the choice of one out of 3 to 6 different powers. And if you aren't happy with your choice, you can "respec" on leveling. In Essentials there are a lot less choices. At some levels you simply get a predetermined new power without any choice. The normal 4th edition has suggestions what powers for example a more defensive fighter should take, and what powers a more aggressive fighter should take. Essentials has two completely separate sub-classes for these, with the option of mixing between defensive and aggressive gone.

I was wondering which of the two different 4th editions people are usually playing these days. Personally I like the normal one with its choices much more than the streamlined Essentials version. But maybe that is just me. What 4th edition are you playing?

Thought experiment on real consequences

Imagine World of Warcraft goes Free2Play with a twist: There is no monthly fee, no item shop, but instead you need to pay $1 for each time you die (comparable to what Allods Online did). Wouldn't those real consequences completely kill the game?

Thursday, April 5, 2012

What is a "game", anyway?

A reader wrote me a mail asking "Your recent post on malicious players made me think about the structure and purpose of games today. Is EVE a game, or a platform for abuse? And what about the "gamification" of real life with location services or 3D games that use the environs around you as input into the game world. What is a "game" these days, anyway?". I would answer that a game is a risk-free environment in which you can try out various actions for fun or for learning without fear of the consequences, because the consequences aren't real.

As a consequence of that, it stops being a game when there are real-world consequences. For example "gambling" isn't a "game" in spite of some resemblances. A MMORPG stops being a game when it spills over into real life and results in real world threats to people and their families. Or when it is "played" to earn real money. And "gamification" isn't a game at all, it only uses game-like incentives and reward structures for real world purposes.

As you can see there is a growing trend of "games" turning into "ungames". There are many reasons for that, one of which is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Once you climb up that pyramid high enough, you are leaving the real world needs behind. If somebody's needs are for status and achievement, he can fulfill that need in a virtual environment, and these virtual environments are usually designed to offer a lot of that status and virtual achievements for less effort than it would take to achieve something in the real world. There are now a sufficient number of people who are sufficiently well-off that they can spend real money on virtual status symbols or game achievements. That is bound to be used by those who are still lower on the pyramid and are just trying to make a buck. The danger is that people become confused about where the border between real and virtual is, which leads to stories like the Chinese guy who murdered a friend who borrowed and then sold his virtual sword.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

EVE Online Killer?

There has been some dispute over how many people play EVE Online *because* of the PvP, and how many people play EVE Online *in spite of* the PvP. With "Sci-Fi" MMORPG SWTOR playing just like WoW, having space flight only on rails, and not having any space trading, there isn't really much of an alternative to EVE Online if you are looking for a space trading MMORPG. That is until now. Mojang of Minecraft fame just announced his 0x10c MMORPG, and that could be some serious competition to EVE Online. I wonder how he'll handle PvP.

Predicting the outcome of a cultural war

Stabs has a post up which predicts that my April Fool's Joke of this year will become reality by 2013, and EVE will get some form of completely safe space. His prediction is not based on the events that already happened, but on the planned "Burn Jita" revenge campaign after the end of The Mittani's 30-day ban. While predicting reactions is always difficult, Stabs does have some good points. CCP long ago published data showing that over 80% of EVE players never leave safe space and never engage in PvP. There simply isn't much choice if you want to play a space trading sim MMORPG, and thus a lot of people who aren't interested in PvP at all play EVE because there isn't much else. If you force these players into PvP by overwhelming the built-in safety mechanisms of "safe" space, it is not unlikely that a significant number of them might quit. And allowing 20% of your players to drive out many of the other 80% isn't a good business strategy.

But ultimately this is just a very narrow battle in a much wider cultural war. Any possible term I could use to describe the two sides is loaded, but to simplify things there is one side which thinks that the internet should provide infinite freedom of expression and behavior, and the other side which thinks that a person's freedom ends where another person's freedom begins.

Predicting the outcome of that cultural war is extremely easy, because it has already been fought in the real world: Absolute freedom lost. You are not free to shout "Fire!" in a theater, or to call somebody a "nigger", or to make overtly sexual remarks to a co-worker. There are various laws and rules against libel, hate speech, harassment, bullying, and other forms of "free expression". There are recognized limitations to freedom of speech. And that isn't likely to ever change. Thus the only remaining question is how fast these limitations and rules and laws will catch up with the internet.

One major obstacle here is anonymity. Both extremes, absolute anonymity and having to post everything under your real name with address attached, have rather obvious problems and dangers. Somebody apparently poster The Mittani's address on the internet, which was followed by various threats against him and his family. Nobody wants that amount of openness. But we are slowly but surely converging to a solution where people can write under pseudonyms on the internet but the authorities will have ways to trace these writings back to the real person. Once that is in place, it becomes possible to treat speech on the internet exactly like speech in any other form.

The other tricky point is separating the virtual lives of avatars from the real lives of the people playing them. There is a huge difference whether somebody is threatened with real world physical or psychical harm, or whether his avatar is under threat of being "killed". As long as virtual property is not recognized as being real property, a Ponzi scheme in EVE Online might be perfectly legal. And it would be perfectly legal too to wipe out an enemy alliance from the map, including threatening them with that. But that doesn't mean that all hate speech, racial slurs, or threats would be legal as long as they are written in a game or on a game forum. Some speech is clearly directed at the player behind the avatar, and the police should treat rape threats to The Mittani's wife on the internet exactly the same as they would treat such a threat made by telephone or by letter or by any other form. And at some point in time they will.

Absolute freedom of expression and behavior on the internet is an illusion created by technical advances moving faster than legislation. There is no doubt that legislation will catch up. There is no reason why somebody should be allowed saying things on the internet that he wouldn't be allowed to say in real life.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Never underestimate Arizona

When I predicted last week that legislators would step in against cyber-bullying, I wasn't counting on Arizona being THAT fast. Arizona House Bill 2549 just passed and only needs the Governors signature to become law. It says:
"It is unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use ANY ELECTRONIC OR DIGITAL DEVICE and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any person."
Basicallyif he lived in Arizona, The Mittani would be looking at a minimum sentence of two and a half years in jail, for a "non-dangerous offender with no previous record", with the maximum sentence being 25 years.

Of course the bill is probably going to be shot down somewhere in court for being overly broad and being in conflict with the first amendment in the stated form. But that is an iterative process: Legislator proposes too broad law, courts intervene, law gets restricted to a more narrow form. There are existing laws that make bullying illegal, there is no reason why a wording couldn't be found to make cyber-bullying illegal too. And just like there are laws that force employers to provide a harassment-free environment, game companies one day will be forced to provide a harassment-free virtual world environment.

Preparing D&D

One aspect in which two Dungeon & Dragons campaigns with different Dungeon Masters are likely to differ a lot is the amount of preparation, the work done between play sessions. Some DMs prepare very little, and then either invent things on the spot, or follow some printed material. Other DMs spend more time preparing than actually playing. That is not only a matter of personal preference, but also related to your play session schedule: If you play often, you don't have time to prepare very much; if you play rarely, preparation makes sense, because you don't want to lose valuable play session minutes with stuff you could have prepared before.

As I am in the latter situation, I tend to prepare a lot. Some of that is story preparation, knowing your NPCs, their motivation, and how they will drive the story forwards with or without the interaction with the players. But of that type of preparation you can only do so much: The story mostly evolves while playing, and you don't want to smother the evolving story by the prepared one.

So a lot of my preparation tends to be on the technical side, like having battle maps, tokens for the monsters, initiative cards for monsters and players, initiative riders to place on top of the DM screen to show turn order, character sheets, powers, and so on. And I'm always looking how to improve that sort of technical preparation, because running combat faster and smoother is always better than having to scramble for information during the play session.

One trick I just recently picked up from watching the D&D videos on YouTube is using trading card sleeves for D&D power cards. While I played a lot of Magic the Gathering until about a decade ago, I wasn't as concerned about the state of my cards as many collectors were, and I played without sleeves, to the horror of some of my opponents. But as many people use these sleeves, they are widely available, and you can get them in different colors. So how does that help for D&D? Well, every character class has powers, which originally come printed in a book. But there are various methods to get those powers into card form, for example the official character sheet generator from Dungeons & Dragons Insider. For my French speaking campaign I use a program called CardsGen, and I'm sure there are equivalent programs in other languages.

By putting the power cards in the appropriate color of sleeves, you can easily keep track of your various encounter and daily powers, by turning them around when you used them. After combat you turn the red ones back up, and after an extended rest the black ones. Green sleeves are for at-will powers, and I use blue sleeves for racial and class traits. While printing out all the powers of your characters and sleeving them takes some time, I'm sure I'll gain time with this system where it counts: During my play sessions.

Mengenal Fungsi Extrude

Fungsi Extrude dalam coreldraw Untuk memberikan ketebalan pada object, seperti digambarkan pada contoh.
Fungsi Extrude dalam coreldraw
Meskipun tidak benar- benar bekerja secara 3 dimensi seperti Autocad atau 3dsmax, dan Extrusion yang dapat digunakan hanya sebatas yang lurus saja, di tangan sorang ahli, effect ini dapat menjadi sangat berguna.

Mengaplikasikan extrude dimulai dengan memilih object yang akan di- extrude, lalu lakukan drag dengan interactive extrude tool, dari (pusat) object ke arah menjauh.

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Mengenal Fungsi Drop Shadow

Effect Drop Shadow ini menganggap object sebagai suatu lembaran tipis/ tanpa ketabalan yang menghadap ke layar monitor, atau dengan kata lain, selalu sebidang dengan kertas. Dengan asumsi tersebut, object diberi cahaya sehingga menimbulkan bayangan yang sederhana. Tergantung dari letak sumber cahaya, bayangan ini dapat:
  • Berada di belakang, depan, atas, bawah,dan samping object. Letak bayangan merupakan kebalikan arah sumber cahaya.
  • jauh atau dekat dari objectnya. Bayangan yang jauh dari objectnya menunjukkan bahwa object tidak menempel pada kertas/ background. Semakin jauh bayangannya, object semakin tampak mengambang tinggi.
  •  tajam atau kabur. Sumber cahaya yang dekat dengan object akan menimbulkan bayangan yang tajam, dan sebaliknya. Aturlah drop shadow sesuai simulasi sumber cahaya yang diinginkan.
Mengaplikasikan drop shadow dimulai dengan memilih object yang akan diberi drop shadow, mengakses tool interactive drop shadow tool dari toolbox, dan men- drag- nya di atas object yang bersangkutan. Adapun drag yang dimaksud dapat dimulai dari:
  • Tengah, menghasilkan bayangan yang flat karena pencahayaan frontal.
  • Samping, menghasilkan bayangan miring. Object seakan bersandar pada dinding vertical.
  • Bawah atau atas, menghasilkan bayangan perspektif yang alami.
Khusus untuk non- flat, proses drag dapat dilakukan ke arah object agar bayangan berada di belakang object, dan drag menjauhi object agar bayangan di depan object (cahaya dari belakang).

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Mengenal Fungsi Power Clip

Powerclip adalah memasukkan satu atau sekelompok object ke dalam suatu object atau group object sebagai penampungnya. Penampung atau wadah dalam powerclip disebut sebagai container, dan pengisinya disebut content. Secara singkat, dapat dikatakan bahwa hasil dari powerclip adalah membuat agar content hanya tampil sebatas yang overlap dengan containernya saja. Jelas ini sangat cocok untuk membuat pola, yang kemudian di- powerclip ke dalam gambar pakaian, misalnya.

gambar pakaian kaos
Objek kaos Sebelum Di power Clip

Mengenal Fungsi Power Clip
Tahap Power Clip Objek Kedalam Objek Kaos

Mengenal Fungsi Power Clip
Setelah menjadi object powerclip
Membuat powerclip, ada dua cara. Pertama, pilih content(s), akses menu effects> powerclip> place inside container, lalu dengan cursor, click pada containernya. Cara kedua, setelah memilih content(s), secara interaktif drag dengan tombol kanan mouse menuju container, dan dari menu yang muncul, pilih powerclip inside.
Setelah menjadi object powerclip, content masih dapat di- edit lagi dengan mengakses menu effects> powerclip> edit contents, dan setelah selesai meng- edit, kembalikan pada keadaan semula dengan menu effects> powerclip> finish editing this level. Untuk benar- benar melepaskan content dari containernya, akses menu effects> powerclip> extract contents.selesai.
semoga bermanfaat, di artikel selanjunya kita kan bahas mengenai  Mengenal Fungsi Drop Shadow dalam coreldraw

Rating: 4
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Monday, April 2, 2012

Mengenal Fungsi Perspective

Perspective adalah salah satu cara menggambar, yang tidak orthographic. Ortographic menggambar garis sejajar dalam dunia nyata sebagai garis sejajar pula, sedangkan dalam gambar perspektif, garis- garis yang sejajar akan digambar sedemikian rupa, sehingga bertemu pada satu titik imajiner. Titik ini dinamakan titik hilang atau vanishing point, disingkat vp. Object dengan perspective dapat memiliki maksimal dua vp.

Menambahkan efek perspective pada object dimulai dengan memilih/ menseleksi object, lalu mengakses menu effects> add perspective. Sebaliknya, untuk mematikan effect perspective, akses menu effects> clear effects atau clear perspective, tergantung keadaan object. Setelah object diberi perspective, object akan dibagi 16 secara virtual dengan garis- garis putus merah, seperti pada contoh (kiri atas).

Pada ujungujungnya tampak titik- titik kontrol hitam, yang dapat digerakkan. Pada keadaan awal ini, belum ada titik hilang. Gerakkan titik- titik inisesuai kebutuhan. Berdasarkan perpindahan titik- titik tadi, akan timbul titik- titik hilang atau vpvp .

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Object Manager Coreldraw

Bila kita membuat dua object berisi color fill atau lebih, bila keduanya saling bertumpuk, maka salah satunya pasti lebih atas dari yang lain sehingga object satu menutup object lainnya. Sehubungan dengan urutan object dalam Corekdraw , memang tidak mungkin ada dua object dengan urutan yang sama. Buatlah dua object sederhana, isi dengan color fill, dan atur letaknya agar saling menumpuk.
ellipse 
Pada contoh di atas tampak sebuah rectangle dan sebuah ellipse. Karena rectangle dibuat terlebih dahulu dibanding ellipse (ellipse lebih muda), maka secara alami ellipse akan menutupi rectangle. Bila anda ingin merubah urutannya, anda dapat memilih obyek yang akan diubah urutan (order)- nya dan menggunakan salah satu:
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Mengenal Fungsi Clone di coreldraw

Clone adalah menduplikasi object sumbernya (master), sehingga menghasilkan duplikat dengan property yang masih mengikuti masternya. Hasil operasi ini disebut clone, dan sifatnya adalah meniru semua perubahan property yang terjadi pada masternya. Property yang dapat diikuti adalah fill, outline, shape (bentuk), transformation, dan bitmap color mask. Mengenai yang terakhir, khusus untuk gambar bitmap (biasanya hasil import) yang diberikan bitmap color mask.
Mengenal Fungsi Clone di coreldraw
Object A di- clonemenjadi A dan B.
Mengenal Fungsi Clone di coreldraw
Perubahan pada object A juga
dialami oleh object B.

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Sunday, April 1, 2012

Watching D&D

Dungeons & Dragons is not by design a spectator sport. A bunch of people sits around a table, they talk, they roll some dice, maybe they move some figurines over a map. Not very exciting if you aren't into the game. I remember at university we had a game running in a public space provided by the university, and once an aspiring journalist came to watch us. She ended up writing a not-so-bad article for the local newspaper about it, but I think she was a bit disappointed about how boring the game was to watch.

Nevertheless there are opportunities to watch some D&D played, as Wizards of the Coast is offering both audio and video podcasts of games run with "celebrities" like the Penny Arcade guys, or the writers of Robot Chicken. The latter is 4 hours of video in 25 sessions, and if that isn't enough for you, you can watch the same 4 hours again with Chris Perkin's Dungeon Master commentary.

The videos were interesting to me, because I am a self-taught DM. My very first pen & paper RPG, over 30 years ago, came as a box with books giving instructions on how to play, but I didn't know anybody else who played. So I persuaded my friends, and by default I was the DM. As pen & paper role-playing has a huge degree of liberty, in a situation like this you can't help but wonder whether you are "doing it right". Well, I met other pen & paper roleplayers years later at university, and their games weren't all that different from mine. And now that I watch the "official" video with the Senior Producer for D&D being the Dungeon Master, I'd say that there is not so much difference between all those D&D games over the decades and in various different locations. Even playing different editions or different games doesn't change the fundamentals of how pen & paper role-playing is played. There are some cultural differences in the details, for example the US videos all have a warning label about "adult language" being used, and the game played in the UK doesn't have or need one.

Chris Perkins is an interesting DM. He does stuff I can't, like doing funny voices. And for somebody who designed the game, he is extremely relaxed about the rules. Many D&D players who watched the video pointed out rule calls with which they disagreed, but I guess in the end the most important thing is to keep the game running instead of getting the rules lawyering exactly right. And there is one thing I learned by listening to Chris' DM commentary on the Robot Chicken game: The story the DM prepared is not very important; the important story is the one that is created by the players interacting with each other and the game. At the end of the day, nobody will remember whatever lore and background story you told, but everybody will remember how the mage's fireball accidentally singed the beard of the dwarven fighter. Players simply care much more about their characters than about the lore of the fantasy world. Thus the less time you as the DM spend telling stories, and the more you encourage interaction between the players, the better the game gets.

EVE Online empire space becomes safe

Well, there was bound to be some fallout from the Mittanigate affair. Apparently several players complained about being harassed, and CCP got under legal pressure to provide a harassment-free environment for those who didn't want to participate in the wars and treacherous politics of EVE Online. Thus they announced a rule-change that from the next patch on empire space will actually become *really* safe. No more suicide ganking possible, players in the safe sectors simply can't PvP at all any more. Even the usual tricks of getting a new player to flag himself for PvP by picking up "a gift" floating in space won't work any more. Empire space simply won't have any PvP at all any more, and those who want to PvP need to fly to Null-Sec.

While lots of players on the EVE forums are rather outraged about the "trammelization of EVE" and think this will destroy the game, the change does provide legal cover for CCP. Somebody like the guy being harrassed by the Mittani can now peacefully mine without fear of being ganked. And there is a very clear line between "safe" and "dangerous" sectors, instead of the wishy-washy assurance that empire space is "more or less safe, unless it's Hulkaggeddon day". CCP can thus clearly demonstrate to the authorities that players are safe from harassment until they ask for it.

Membuat Conical Fountain fill

Fountain fill conical bila diaplikasikan terhadap lingkaran, akan menghasilkan Efek Tiga Dimensi, seolah- olah lingkaran tersebut adalah kerucut yang dilihat dari atas, dan dengan cahaya yang berasal dari sisi, seperti digambarkan pada contoh di bawah ini :
Conical fountain fill
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Membuat Square fountain fill di coreldraw

Pada dasarnya, square sangat mirip dengan radial, hanya saja bentuk gradient yang dihasilkan bukan lingkaran, tetapi bujursangkar, seperti pada gambar di bawah  ini.
Square fountain fill
Kegunaan praktis dari fountain fill jenis ini antara lain adalah untuk mewakili sumber cahaya yang sangat terang.

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Membuat Radial fountain fill dalam coreldraw

Dari obyek dengan color fill atau linear fountain fill, anda dapat mengkonversinya menjadi radial fountain fill melalui property bar interactive fill tool. Di sini ada dua hal yang unik.
  1. Distribusi warna dari dalam ke luar obyek.
  2. Warna pertama atau warna asli color fill dianggap sebagai warna terluar.
Karena sifatnya yang demikian, maka biasanya radial fill tidak lain digunakan untuk membuat efek tiga dimensi
obyek seperti pada contoh di di bawah ini,
Radial fountain fill
atau bahkan jika warna yang digunakan tidak hanya dua, hasilnya akan dapat lebih baik lagi. Untuk setting lainnya, fountain fill radial tidak terlalu berbeda dengan fountain fill linear.
Baca Juga artikel mengenai :

Rating: 4

Fountain fill linear di coreldraw

Fountain fill  
Selain dengan color fill sederhana,kita juga dapat mengisi obyek- obyek curve Tertutup dengan metode fill lainnya, seperti fountain fill dan pattern fill. Di artikel ini kita akan membahas advanced fill, khususnya untuk linear fountain fill yang sering digunakan.Fill yang non- color fill dapat diakses melalui fill tool pada toolbox, atau yang lebih praktis adalah melalui interactive fill tool [G], dan memilih type fill yang anda inginkan dari property bar. Fountain fill sendiri ada empat jenis:
  1. linear.
  2. conical.
  3. radial dan 
  4. square.
Secara garis besar, semua berfungsi untuk membuat fill dengan gradasi dari satu warna ke warna lainnya, secara gradual. Ini dikenal juga dengan istilah gradient. Perubahan dari satu warna ke warna lainnya dapat berlangsung secara direct, spectral counter clockwise (ccw), maupun spectral clockwise (cw).

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